Ghosts In Hillwood
by later-nerds
Summary: Sam and Dean investigate an odd series of events in Hillwood Washington, beginning with the murders at the Johansson/Heyerdahl rehearsal dinner. However, everyone discovers that theses occurrences go back a lot farther than they would have guess, forcing them to accept help from another hunter.
1. Chapter 1

Lila took a deep breath as she hid inside Mighty Pete. This was _not_ what she had in mind for Gerald and Phoebe's rehearsal dinner. It was so uncharacteristic. Usually Mr. Johansson was such a kind person. It was a warm summer night so Lila knew she shouldn't have been cold, but she felt a chill in the air none the less. She rubbed her hands together and stopped when she saw the droplets of blood. She hoped everyone was alright. Arnold had told her to meet him here while he tried helping the others. She tried not to worry, but she was worried sick anyway. She wanted to check her phone, but that wouldn't do any good. She had fallen and shattered the screen while she ran to the tree house. She hadn't been here in years. She couldn't help but think back to times in here. Once she had a sleepover in this treehouse with Phoebe, Rhonda, Nadine, and Sheena. Rhonda was opposed to sleeping in an 'old shack', but she'd ended up having fun. This had been where she and Arnold had their first date when she was sixteen. It had been such a fun and romantic evening. It was eight years later and she still cared deeply for Arnold, but sometimes she couldn't help but think that their relationship didn't have that ever-so special something that it had had before. Still, now was no time to think about her relationship and what to do with it. She was just glad she and Arnold weren't married. That would have made it ever-so much more complicated.

She heard someone - or some _thing_ climbing the rope ladder up the tree house and she held her breath while shrinking into the shadows. She couldn't see who it was. They weren't alone. As soon as the first person was up the ladder a second person followed. Then a third...a fourth...a fifth...that was it...she hoped.

"Lila?" The voice was a whisper, but she recognized it at once. She sprung up and out of the shadows before running to Arnold and wrapping her arms tightly around him, sobbing hysterically at last.

"Oh Arnold, I'm so frightened!" She wept.

Arnold shushed her comfortingly and ran a hand down her back. "It's okay, we're safe now."

"If there was ever an omen for us to _not_ get married then this was a doozy." Phoebe muttered, stalking back and forth and running her hands down the front of her purple chiffon cocktail dress.

"Babe, this has _nothing_ to do with us getting married." Gerald exclaimed. "I mean, come on, that is totally not my dad."

"You're either blind or totally crazy, man, because that _was_ your dad." Sid exclaimed frantically.

Nadine put a hand on his shoulder and tried to shush him, but it didn't do much good. Sid was having a panic attack. It wasn't easy to come back from that. "Sid, sweetheart, calm down. This isn't easy for not Gerald. It's not his fault."

"Damn right it's not my fault!" Gerald exclaimed. "I don't know what happened, he just went crazy!"

"It doesn't seem right." Arnold commented. "I've known your dad basically all my life. It's almost like he was possessed or something."

Phoebe rolled her eyes, "Yeah, my future father-in-law got possessed by ghosts and went bat-shit crazy and decided to rip my cousin's arteries out with his teeth just for kicks and giggles. That sounds realistic and reasonable."

"I'm not saying this is normal, I'm just saying...I don't know what I'm saying." Arnold heaved a sigh, trying to make sense of this entire mess. "Let's just get somewhere safe and try and get our heads on right."

"What about my parents?" Phoebe exclaimed.

"What about Jamie O and Timberly?" Gerald chimed in.

"We're no good to them dead, let's go!" Sid declared.

No one felt good about leaving the others behind, but they also knew that Sid was right, despite his hysterical state. Laden with guilt they left the tree house and hugged the shadows, searching for a safe place, at least for now.

~.~.~.~

"I don't know how many times we have to have this conversation, Sammy." Dean snapped after he finished his bite of hamburger, placing the food down

Sam rolled his eyes and dropped the newspaper he had been reading in front of his older brother. "We can fight about Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee later. Check it out. Hillwood, Washington."

Dean picked up the paper, "Ah, the good old evergreen state. I don't think we've worked a case there since we were working cases with dad." He read the highlights of article aloud. "Alright so a rehearsal dinner and the father of the groom loses his marbles and rips out three of the wedding guests' carotid arteries...with his teeth." He winced and shook his head. God, that was gross. "So, what? Daddy's a vamp?"

Sam shook his head, "That's what I thought too, keep reading."

"Martin Johansson claims to have no memory of the incident. Three dead and more than ten wedding guests and members of the wedding party are still missing." Dean folded the paper and passed it back to Sam. "Sounds like our kind of thing. Why does Hillwood Washington sound so familiar though?"

Sam shrugged, "Beats me. I'll do some digging once we get there."

Dean shrugged. He couldn't argue with that. He wasn't going to leave without finishing his burger first though.

~.~.~.~

"What kind of a town doesn't have a crappy motel?" Dean complained as they started settling into their room.

Sam rolled his eyes, "It's not the first time we've stayed in a boarding house before. Besides, it was this or the car."

"Yeah I know." Dean plopped down on the bed and covered his face with his arm. "Wake me up when dawn breaks."

~.~.~.~

Sam was stumped. At least for now. The Winchesters always figured out what was going on. Eventually anyway. While Dean was doing another sweep on the crime scene so he was interrogating Martin Johansson. Af first glance he didn't _look_ like a killer, but they never did.  
Still, he tried keeping an open mind.

When he shut the door behind him Martin jumped. It was probably a shock being on the other side of the table. "Mr. Johansson, my name is agent Carter with the FBI. I'd just like to ask you a couple of questions about your son's rehearsal dinner."

"I've already told the police what happened." Officer Johansson retorted briskly.

"Yes, I know, I just need to do my own report." Sam explained, trying to offer a smile.

Martin sighed, his head drooping below his shoulders. "I know what happened, but I don't remember it at all. All I remember is getting ready for the rehearsal dinner and then everything went black. Next thing I know I'm on the other side of town, passed out in Tina Park, covered in blood and getting picked up by one of the men in my squadron."

Sam scribbled down the account in a notepad in front of him. "So you have no idea where your son and the other missing guests are?"

Martin Johansson looked shocked, "What? My-my son is...he's missing? Which one?"

Martin may have been responsible, but he hadn't been responsible knowingly. "Both of them, last I heard." Sam answered.

"What about Timberly?" Martin asked frantically. "And my wife?"

"We're doing all we can to find them." Sam assured him. He asked a few more questions, despite the fact he had more than he needed, just to avoid looking suspicious before he took his leave. He took out his phone once he wasn't within earshot of anyone and he called his brother. On the other end Dean asked what Sam found out and he told him. It was time to hit the books.

~.~.~.~

This was awful. All they had wanted was a place to squat until things cooled down. They shouldn't have been imprisoned by the goddamn Sewer King. Arnold hadn't seen him since he was a kid, but that didn't mean that high disgusting majesty didn't have it out for him. He just hoped that everything was alright. Arnold and the others had found Timberly, Jamie O, Harold, and Stinky while they were trying to think things over. He wasn't sure why they'd decided the sewers was their best course of action, but they'd ended up getting found out by the Sewer King. He was older, and frankly more terrifying than before. He was just...watching them, his skin so thin and pale that you could see nearly every vein in his face and neck. Arnold honestly hoped that everything would be alright in the end.

"You remember the last time we were in this jam?" Gerald asked Arnold, a small trace of amusement in his voice. He and Arnold were the only ones awake at the moment.

Arnold smirked, "Yeah. I was picking up my grandpa's watch and I dropped it in a hole and won it back in a chess game."

"Man, we were always doing crazy things when we were kids." Gerald chuckled, glad for the bit of happy nostalgia to get them through the madness. "You remember that time Rhonda's 'marriage predictor' said you were going to marry Helga Pataki?"

Arnold smiled and shook his head, "One-hundred-and-ten times."

"Kinda makes you think." Gerald observed. "Not that you and Lila are a bad couple or anything, but ya know, what would have happened had Helga not…"

"Been brutally murdered by her father?" Arnold finished a bit coldly. Having a friend die like that wasn't just someone anyone forgot about. Arnold knew that Bob Pataki had been a royal dick, but he never would have thought he'd go as far as to murder his entire family. Sometimes Arnold still thought about it, and it still filled him with rage that Bob Pataki had gotten away with it and was still out there, somewhere.

"Hey! Stop that chatter!" The Sewer King yelled hysterically, waking up Lila, Phoebe, Sid, Jamie O, and Timberly in the process.

"We were just talking." Gerald replied coldly. "If you'd let us go then you wouldn't be bothered by the idle chatter."

The Sewer King began to advance on them, wielding a wrench over his head, ready to strike them down. Before he could get too close to them he stopped dead in his tracks as a stream of thick, black smoke rushed into his mouth, choking off his screams as his body spasmed. Sid, Phoebe, and Lila screamed, waking the others. Arnold, Gerald, Jamie O, and Timberly were too shocked to scream. When the smoke stopped rushing down his throat he looked at them, his eyes an ungodly shade of black. He smiled. It was the most horrifying thing he could have done. "Well well well. Ten years later and one of you is next in line. Too bad daddy's not here. He was so...disgustingly good. It was so much fun to make him start ripping your family apart." Gerald looked at his siblings and they looked back at him, still filled with terror. The Sewer King laughed, "Oh, don't worry. Everything will be fine when you're dead. Up to heaven. Or...down to hell, I suppose."

"Don't you touch them!" Arnold shouted defensively. Since his grandparents died the Johanssons were the closest thing he had to family.

"Do you want to die with them?" The Sewer King asked with a laugh.

He moved slowly, advancing on them with tedious precision. No one saw the bullet move over their heads and into the Sewer King's mouth. Despite this, his head snapped back upright and he glared at the intruders. "Hunters!...you've not seen the last of me!" HIs mouth opened and as quickly as the smoke entered the Sewer King it was gone again. Once the smoke was gone the Sewer King dropped down dead. Dean and Sam came around the collection of the P.S. 118 gang, their guns at the ready, just in case.

"Are you Gerald Johansson?" Sam asked Jamie O, who shook his head and frantically pointed at his younger brother. "It's alright. We're here to help you. I'm Sam, that's my brother, Dean."

"He said he was going to kill my family!" Gerald exclaimed.

"Did he say anything else? Anything weird?" Dean asked, putting his gun away.

"I don't know, man!" Gerald shouted, "This is all nuts!"

Arnold thought back and he remembered, "He said he had come back ten years later and Gerald's family was next."

Sam and Dean looked at each other before they got back to getting everyone back home safely. There was a lot of questions that needed to be answered. What was this demon up to?

 **I know, I know, I have a cussload of unfinished fics, but this has been driving me nuts for a while so it had to be done. It's kind of a crappy starter. It'll get better. Please review. It's my first time writing Sam and Dean so I"m a bit concerned that I totally screwed them up. Love you all.**


	2. Chapter 2

Dean and Sam never would have expected that they'd be living so close to one of the victims. Let alone renting from them. Arnold was constantly poking his head into their room, asking if they needed anything and pestering them about what happened to the Sewer King. They'd gotten past the idea of lying to him about it so they were upfront. He had been possessed by a demon. The question was what demon and why. Crowley was high on the suspect list, naturally. Ten year pattern and all that just screamed crossroads demon, but they'd seen someone possessed by Crowley and he was special. Came with being the King of Hell, it seemed. The smoke was black. Crowley's smoke was red. Still, it didn't mean it was one of his. It could have been a Lucifer loyalist as well. Their suspect pool was uncomfortably large. For now the best thing they could do is try and keep the Johansson family safe. That was where Dean was right now. Salt on the windows and doors, demon traps, the works, staying close with a loaded firearm.

Sam was trying to do research. It was easier said than done though, particularly when Arnold was more of a hindrance than a help. He thought that maybe a Hillwood native would help, maybe he'd know a bit of what had happened before. Instead, Arnold just bombarded him with questions and seldom answered any of Sam's. He dove into the internet and tried to shut Arnold out at this point, digging for any similar cases.

Then he found a match. Rather than being excited to be closer to solving the puzzle he groaned and buried his face in his hands. God, this was going to be awkward. Despite that he could just hear Dean's excited exclamation at the news he was about to deliver to this older brother.

~.~.~.~.~

Arnold held Lila's hand tightly as they waited at the Johansson house. Since these strangers came it felt like the most safe place in Hillwood. Lila fidgeted uncomfortably at his side. She'd been thinking about breaking up with him for a while, but the timing was just wrong. The taller, yet younger, of the two hunter brothers was pacing anxiously back and forth while his older brother was downright giddy, staring out the window and awaiting the arrival of their 'reinforcements'. It was obvious that they weren't really FBI agents, but they were also the only ones who knew what the hell was going on.

Their attention was captured when the sound of not one but two cars pulled up in front of the house. Every twisted their necks to try and get to the perfect angle to see who had pulled up, but it was impossible to see through the window. Dean smirked happily, looking like a giant puppy with a new toy. "You ready for you best friend Sammy?"

Sam glared at his older brother before snapping, "Shut up."

Dean chuckled, but did shut up, per his brother's request. The few minutes from the time the cars pulled up seemed to last forever. When there was a knock on the door Mrs. Johansson and her daughter stood up, but everyone else stayed seated. Dean answered the door and could be heard greeting the 'reinforcements'. Sam just looked nervous. When Dean came in he wasn't expecting the outrage when he walked in.

"You get him out of here!" Lila screamed, on her feet and moving to advance on the bastard who had killed her big sis. Everyone else was cross and surprised, but not nearly as much as Lila was.

"You have some nerve showing up here." Gerald growled. "After what you did."

The man looked confused by the outrage, "Who the hell are these kids?"

"You killed my friend!" Phoebe snapped.

He looked long and hard and Phoebe, "Wait...I know you."

"Damn right you know me." Phoebe snarled, "You killed my best friend."

Dean and Sam looked back and forth between each other, wondering what on earth was going on. "Uh...Bob, do you know these people?" Dean asked warily.

Bob Pataki shrugged, "I'm not sure."

"What's going on?" The voice took them all by surprise. Behind Bob Pataki was a girl, about the age of the P.S. 118 gang, her attention fixed upon loading a shotgun. She was blonde, tall, lean, but not at all approachable. She was wearing a pair of black military styled boots with the bottom hem of her dark washed skinny jeans tucked into them. Her shirt was a black Guns and Roses tank top. It seemed that she was wearing a black leather jacket before, but that was draped over her arm now. If you looked you could just make out the tattoo of a pentagram encircled by flames on the back of her neck.

Dean didn't answer, but grinned at the sight of the girl, "Hells Bells."

She looked up with a smirk, finishing loading the shotgun before she replied, "Deanie Weenie."

"Hey! None of that." Dean scolded jokingly. Despite this they laughed between each other and hugging each other. As far as Dean was concerned Helga was the closest thing to a little sister he ever would have, and he was okay with that. She had grown up in the life. She hadn't started as young as the Winchesters had, but every now and then Bob Pataki would leave Helga with Bobby Singer at the same time John Winchester would leave him and Sam with Bobby. It was the closest thing to growing up with someone (aside from Sam) that they'd had.

Her smile didn't falter when she saw Sam. "Hey Beanpole." she greeted him.

Sam smiled back uncomfortably, glancing between Helga and her dad, "Yeah, hey."

He had been hoping to not anger Helga's dad, but that was no good. "Why can't you say hi to her without looking all skittish and stupid?" Bob Pataki snapped.

Helga rolled her eyes, "It's because he and I sucked face once and you haven't gotten over it." She answered shortly.

"Helga?"

Helga was distracted by the reunion by one of the civilians. She arched a brow at the girl and put her hands on her hips as she studied the girl. It may have been because she'd seen so many people over the years, but she didn't stand out. "Yeah...who're you?"

"Helga Pataki?" another person asked, this one an african american boy who was about her age.

Helga turned on Dean, "Is this some kind of prank?"

"You don't remember us?" a blond boy asked.

She squinted at him. The squint turned into a scowl. She leaned in close to him. He was too nervous to move back as she studied his face. Looking at her now he could see bits and pieces of the Helga he used to know. Her unibrow was gone. There was a pale and jagged scar running down her neck that he didn't remember. Her eyes were still blue and bright, but they seemed a lot harder than before somehow.

"Did I save your ass from a windigo a few years ago?" she asked slowly.

Bob shook his head, "That windigo was in Colorado."

Helga rolled her eyes, "There are these things called people use them to go camping."

"What's a windigo?" Arnold asked.

Helga sighed, "Nope, it wasn't you. He was cuter." she glanced at the girl on his arm and looked her up and down, "His taste in girls wasn't so cookie cutter either."

Lila's jaw dropped, but she wasn't able to form words to express her outrage.

Phoebe scowled, upset that she wasn't getting any recognition. "Icecream!" she exclaimed.

Everyone was befuddled by this outburst, but it was the push that Helga needed to recognize her friend. "Phoebe?"

Phoebe closed the distance between her and Helga and wrapped the taller girl up in an embrace, an emotional brouhaha making her emotional. "I thought that you were dead! How this this possible?"

Helga looked uncomfortable. Sam shared a confused glance with Bob and Dean was biting back an amused chortle. Helga cleared her throat and managed to pry the smaller woman off of her. "That's kind of a long story. So...what's the case?"

Arnold was cross. They hadn't seen Helga since middle school. Everyone thought she was dead! There was proof that she was dead! And she had the gall to just walk in here, disregard her best friend from her past, and simply ask 'what's the case?'. No, this wouldn't stand. Usually Arnold was kind and understanding, but now he was confused and wanted answers. "You owe Phoebe a better answer than that." Arnold growled.

Helga folded her arms and glared at him, "I'm here for the case. Not for what would be my five-year high school reunion." She looked back at the Winchester brothers. "What's the case?"

Dean held up a manilla folder before extending it to Helga, "We think it has something to do with what happened to your family. Thought it might be worth letting you in on. We got our hands on the file from your...incident, but we thought you should see it first before we went poking around. Out of respect and all that crap."

Bob perked up and tried to intercept the folder as Dean handed it to Helga, but he was too far away. "Maybe I ought to look at that. I'm more versed on the event and -"

Helga snatched the folder away and ignored her father's rambling, "Stop being stupid, old man. You know I always do the brainwork."

Bob was persistent though, "Yes, but I lived it. I should be the one to see it."

Helga ignored her father's odd behavior, but it didn't go unnoted by the others. Sam and Dean exchanged confused glances and the others looked on as Helga studied the pages within the file. When she looked up she looked furious. "What the hell is this, Bob?"

"I told you to give it to me!" Bob replied.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" She screamed, dropping the folder and shoving a picture in her father's face.

Bob sighed and looked away from the photo, "You can't make me feel guilty about it, Helga."

"You killed your family and you don't even feel guilty?" Lila questioned coldly.

Helga turned on Lila, reflexively reaching for her gun. No one talked to her dad like that. No one but Helga. "You don't know shit, Ginger-vitis." She growled. "It wasn't him."

"Hell, what happened?" Dean asked warily.

Helga handed Dean the picture. It was a picture of a young Helga Geraldine Pataki, sprawled out on the staircase, her abdomin ripped open and a lot of her organs ripped out and spilling from her body, her head twisted at an unnatural angle. Dean glanced at the picture before he realized…"Oh no, Bob you didn't."

"Like you're one to talk." Bob retorted.

"How long?" Helga snapped.

Bob glanced back at his daughter, "You know the way it works."

"What's going on?" Phoebe asked.

Helga handed the photo to Phoebe, who gasped and took a step back at the sight of it. "My dad did something really stupid."

Arnold looked over Phoebe's shoulder at the photo, wincing at the sight of it. Lila could only look at it for a few seconds before she turned away. "How the hell did you survive that?"

Helga heaved a sigh, "I didn't."

Timberly perked up, "That doesn't make any sense. You're right here...how could you have not survived?"

Helga ignored the string of stupid questions and turned back to her dad. "How long?"

Bob heaved a sigh. "Four weeks."

"Why just me?" Helga growled.

"Because you fought it." Bob answered simply. "You fought as hard as you could...and I let you down."

"You didn't let her down, you killed her." Arnold grumbled.

Helga turned to glare at Arnold. "I remember what happened. My dad didn't kill me. He got possessed and flipped his shit on some customers at his store a few weeks before, but it wasn't him."

"So...if it's the same M.O…" Sam began thoughtfully.

"Mommy dearest is going to have to get inked." Helga replied with a sigh.

"You're taking this pretty well." Bob commented.

Dean swallowed a lump in his throat, "Yeah...um...Mrs. Johansson, you should come with us."

Mrs. Johansson looked taken aback. "Where are we going?"

"Tattoo parlor. It would probably be a good idea for everyone else to come too." Dean answered.

~.~.~.~.~

Helga went to the tattoo parlor with everyone because, in her words, 'why the hell not?' In all honesty she was just opting for a way to spend some time away from her dad. How could he do this to her? Especially with all the guilt tripping and he had the audacity to have kept something like this from her for so long! True, from a legal standpoint he wasn't her father. Legally she was Helga Karen Singer. Helga Geraldine Pataki was a thing of the past, but it was still who she was. She peeled over the case files, the old ones and the new. It was harder than she wanted to admit to look at her mother and sister's murder scene photos. Gerald's family still had a shot. With the Winchesters it was possible to actually kill the demon rather than just exorsise it, only buying them a bit more time. She knew about the demon-killing knife they possessed. They could bring the wild goose chase her father had begun about ten years ago to an end.

That's all it would end though. In a few weeks her dad would be dead. It was a hard pill to swallow. She had half a mind to put a bullet in his leg just for lying about it. She knew it wouldn't be unlikely for her to actually go through with it. She'd actually shot Dean in the foot once because he was pissing her off. She'd broken Sam's wrist once. She didn't even know how many broken wrists and ribs she was responsible with her dad. The only person who she hadn't knowingly injured was Bobby Singer, her legal 'd 'adopted' her for the sole purpose of letting her get a legal driver's licence when she turned sixteen. Bobby was like a father to her though, just like Dean and Sam. Until she was about seventeen and her father declared her 'ready to hunt' she basically lived with Bobby, only leaving for a few months out of the two years. She learned more about hunting with Bobby than she ever did with her dad. At least after Bob kicked the bucket she'd still have Bobby. And the Winchesters, of course.

"Arnold! It hurts!" the cookie cutter ginger whined as the tattoo artist drew the anti-possession symbol on her hip. Arnold, who was getting the tattoo on his back, reached out to her and held her hand as she whined and whimpered like a puppy who had been hit by a truck. Maybe it was just the gooey little teenager in her, but the scene sickened her. She and Arnold had taken different paths. There was no chance for them. Not really. At least Phoebe had gotten what she wanted. Engaged to get married to Gerald. It had been all Pheebs had wanted since she was nine. The more time she spent with her old childhood friends the more she remembered them. They didn't need to know that though.

She looked over the data and suddenly realized a link. How had she missed it before? She'd read it in one of Bobby's books. She couldn't feel too bad about having missed it. Bobby had thousands of books. There was still a lot of work to do.

 **Leave a review pretty please? Cas is gonna be in the next chapter. :D**


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